Dodge the Dog Daze of Summer

The following post was written by Mark Dengler, President at RMS.

As summer starts to wind down, I trust that folks are enjoying the sunny and hot weather. However, don’t be fooled by these hazy days. Companies can’t afford to be lazy. Summer is actually an excellent time to work on relationship marketing strategies with existing and prospective customers. It is an opportunity to reach out and touch base with key contacts and connections.

“Relationship Marketing” is a marketing approach that focuses on building strong customer relationships and long term engagement. It is often associated with customer loyalty program development, but can prove very effective in prospecting and enhancing brand awareness. It is built upon communication strategies that encourage two-way interaction and engagement. Obviously, it is critical to be utilizing relationship marketing strategies throughout the entire year, however the summer is a particularly good time to connect with folks. For many, this popular vacation season slows the deadline-focused intensity in companies, and people are more willing to interact.

Over the next couple of weeks, it makes sense to consider implementing the following key marketing strategies to better position your organization for a strong fourth quarter and building strong relationships:

1. Identify your top customers and make a personal inquiry as to their needs and satisfaction with your product/service. Your senior leadership should be involved with this activity. Simply by asking for customer feedback, you demonstrate to customers their value.
2. Mystery Shop your organization. It was Maya Angelou who said “people may forget what is said or done, but they never forget how you made them feel.” This quote embodies the heart of customer relations. Companies need to look at their own processes from this perspective, making sure that customers and prospects have a positive interaction experience.
3. Examine your “listening posts.” What are the ways that customers and prospects inform you of their needs and experiences? Do you have listening posts? Are these being used? Now may be the perfect time to enhance your tools of interaction. Refresh your website capabilities. Implement a customer survey. Conduct some key research in-depth interviews. Find effective ways to “listen” to your customers and prospects so that you can continue to meet their needs.
4. Focus on informing rather than promoting. Companies that look to position themselves as knowledgeable experts in a particular area are able to build market followers. These followers include both customer and prospects. Establish your organization as a go to source for information. Look to offer free resources such as white papers, webinars, and podcasts.
5. Optimize social media to depict your organization’s culture and values. In building relationships, people want to affiliate with those that are most like them, hence the term homophily. This is true with organization affiliation as well. Companies need to promote their culture, values and beliefs to help brand themselves. It serves as a means for individuals to identify and affiliate with. With evermore competition, this approach is a way to differentiate your organization and foster strong relationships.

Summer is definitely a great time to enhance your relationship marketing with customers and prospects. And it never hurts to take advantage of the sunny weather in the meantime.

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a full service marketing and market research firm located in Baldwinsville, NY. RMS provides an array of research methodologies that result in actionable analytics and recommendations for the client to enhance decision making. RMS is also home to QualiSight, a premier focus group and interview research facility, and RMS ViewPoint, a leading consumer research panel in Central New York. Visit our website at RMSresults.com.

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Dealing with a Social Media Crisis

The RMS social media team recently attended a Social Media Breakfast presentation by Greg Loh, Managing Partner at Eric Mower + Associates. Aside from the great coffee and pastries, our team received an information-packed 90 minutes of social media crisis management gold. Although our social media team prides itself on staying up to date on the latest trends (it must be the researchers in us… we’re curious by nature), Greg provided insightful tips that any reputation management professional would find useful. Social media has been known to fuel fire under public opinion, and the popularity of this communication medium seems to be here to stay for the foreseeable future. The presentation touched on two main types of social media crisis situations and how to deal with them – crisis + social and social = crisis.

• Crisis + Social

The influence that social media plays during a crisis has heightened over the last decade, with everyday people (not journalists) commonly breaking news stories via social media outlets. A prime example that Greg gave during the presentation was the US Airways plane landing on the Hudson River in 2009, later dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson.” The news of the plane landing on the Hudson River instantly became worldwide news when Janis Krums posted a picture of people entering life boats from the plane. Greg noted that the online world “amplifies and accelerates” a story to make it big news. Given the unpredictable nature of crises, it’s imperative to be cautious about automated social media or any communcation. Even if the crisis is not directly related to you or your company, if your social media activity or automated survey seems insensitive, the public backlash could create a firestorm of bad press for the company. Listening is critical for companies engaging in social media activity.

• Social = Crisis

When a crisis surrounding your organization originates on social media, Greg recommends that in some instances you should wait before reacting immediately. Of course this does not apply if there is a safety concern or an issue (e.g. a chemical spill) that must be addressed immediately to avoid further damage. For less serious public relations issues, Greg recommends monitoring social media negativity to determine if the content is gaining steam. Often minor social media crises self-regulate through what Greg called the “social media washing machine,” where one story is replaced by the next. When addressing a social crisis, it’s best to focus on incontrovertible facts and third-party support. Unless social comments are highly inflammatory, derogatory, or defamatory, resist the urge to remove critical commentary. By addressing the issue, you have the opportunity to turn a critic into a supporter by finding a solution to their dissatisfaction or disagreement.

To close the presentation, Greg provided a crisis management survival strategy. Essentially, it boils down to figuring out what people want, need, and/or expect in a crisis/emergency situation. The public generally wants to know:

1. That you have noticed the problem.
2. That you care.
3. That you are in control of the situation.
4. That you are doing something about it.
5. That you are minimizing damage.
6. That you are taking steps to make sure it does not happen again.

RMS is a full-service market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more about our research capabilities, please contact Sandy Baker, our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422. Visit our website at www.RMSresults.com.

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How LinkedIn Can Boost Your Business

The following blog post was written by Alexis Smith, Intern at RMS.

 

 

With over 400 million users, LinkedIn is the top professional social networking site and provides individuals and organizations with invaluable networking resources. Used correctly, LinkedIn can enhance organizations from both B2B and B2C viewpoints.

Here are four reasons to why it’s essential for organizations to have a LinkedIn page.

1. Transparency

Similar to other social networking sites, LinkedIn allows businesses to create a page and share updates. Posting on LinkedIn allows organizations to raise awareness of initiatives, and encourage professional networking with current and potential followers. LinkedIn users are able to “follow” organizations of interest. Followers are notified when the organization shares a status update, blog post, job posting, and more – much like Facebook.

2. Exposure

Your organization’s LinkedIn page will gain you access to individuals you may not reach on other social networks. In fact, nearly two-thirds of users have found that LinkedIn has helped with researching and validating people and organizations. This provides the company with a great professional networking tool.

3. Expansion

LinkedIn is essential for small to medium sized businesses that are looking to expand their clientele or business as a whole. With millions of users, LinkedIn provides a platform for professionals to stay connected, engaged, and up-to-date. LinkedIn allows you to promote your content with targeted advertising approaches – whether it be to recruit a new employee, or reach prospective clients.

4. Access to new talent

If an organization needs a role filled, employers can view individuals’ profiles and connect with them. This provides recruiters with the ability to view potential employees’ job history, recommendations, education, areas of interest, connections, and more. LinkedIn is becoming a recruitment hub – where some companies are finding it more effective to find new talent than hiring a recruitment company or posting a web advertisement.

To stay up to date with all of the latest RMS news and information:

Follow us on Twitter @RMS_Research!

Like us on Facebook!

Follow us on LinkedIn!

Are you a member of the RMS ViewPoint Research Panel? You can click here to sign up. To stay up to date with the latest research opportunities:

Follow us on Twitter at @RMS_ViewPoint

RMS is a full-service market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more about our services, please contact Sandy Baker, our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422. Visit our website at www.RMSresults.com.

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6 Social Media Best Practices for Small Businesses

Social media is a quick and easy way to share information and engage with consumers, employees, and the community. Using social media for marketing initiatives is less expensive than other options, making it a cost effective way to communicate. If executed properly, small businesses can see great results from social media efforts. Here are six best practices to help small businesses succeed on social media.

1. Define your voice

Personify your brand by giving it a distinctive voice across all social media outlets. This will establish consistency without repeating the exact same content. This is especially important when looking at the differences in formality between social media outlets. For example, informal language is more appropriate on Facebook for most businesses, while a more formal approach is suitable on LinkedIn. Keeping these slight differences in mind will help you create targeted content on social media.

2. Transparency is key

Let stakeholders see behind the scenes of your organization, especially the people who make your organization great. Social media is a great way to showcase your workplace culture. Put the people who work in your organization front and center. A few ways to do this is to highlight new hires, promotions, birthdays, milestones, events, and other reasons to celebrate (with the employees’ permission of course)!

3. Quality not quantity

We all know people who over share social media, and organizations are not an exception. Your posts should appeal to one or more of the following stakeholder groups: clients/customers (past or present), prospective clients/customers, employees (current and potential), or the general community. When creating content, think of the following: Will this resonate with my audience? Is this the right platform for this post? Is there anything I can include (i.e. pictures or links) to make people more likely to engage with this post? Is the language clear and concise? If you say, “No,” to one or more of these questions you should take a step back and think about what you are posting and why.

4. Build a community

Social media is a great way to build a community around your brand. To do this, you must strive for engagement. Don’t be afraid to ask followers for feedback and comments on posts.

Another way to drive engagement is to create personalized posts by tagging businesses, clients, and people when applicable. For example, if someone from your company attends a local event you can tag the employee and the organization hosting the event in your posts to increase exposure.

5. Know your numbers

Knowing what appeals to your followers (and what doesn’t) will make your posts more strategic and effective. To do this, review the analytic insights provided on your social media account page(s). After perusing, you will have a deeper understanding about who your followers are, what content is most engaging, when the best times to post are, and more.

6. Have a plan

Having a plan will allow you to create posts in advance, which will save you from scrambling to create content at the last second. At RMS we use a social media calendar to plan content for major milestones and events. This allows us to place posts strategically, and know what content needs to be created in the future. It’s also important to note that not all content should be created ahead of time. Social media is very “in the moment” so it’s important to be ready to participate in discussions around trending topics that are appropriate for your business.

Your company should also have a communications plan in place for responding to feedback. Separate action plans should be created for positive, neutral, and negative feedback. Having policies and procedures will allow employees to respond swiftly and appropriately to all feedback received.

To stay up to date with all of the latest RMS news and information:

 

 Follow us on Twitter @RMS_Research!

 

 Like us on Facebook!

 

Follow us on LinkedIn!

 

Are you a member of the RMS ViewPoint Research Panel yet? To sign up, click here. To stay up to date with the latest research opportunities:

 

Follow us on Twitter at @RMS_ViewPoint

 

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a full service market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more about our services, contact Sandy Baker, Senior Director of Business Development and Corporate Strategy, at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.

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What Does a Social Media and Panel Coordinator Do? A Day in the Life…

Hi I’m Emily – the Social Media and Panel Coordinator at Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS). You may recognize me from previous blog posts, LinkedIn, or we may have conversed via email or phone if you’re a member of the RMS ViewPoint Research Panel or another panel I manage. Typically, when I tell a friend or family member what I do, they are only familiar with the first half of my title (Social Media Coordinator) unless they are savvy in market research. Let’s explore my daily responsibilities related to social media and panel coordination to break down those barriers in understanding!

For me, being on time means being 15 minutes early, so I get a head start every day. I love getting to the office early because it allows me to organize my to-do list and quickly check my inbox before the day gets ahead of me. Next, I always start scheduling social media posts into Buffer for Research Analyst & Social Media Strategist at RMS, Erica, to review. While I’m scheduling content, I may make last minute edits, create additional content, check that all links still work correctly, and add in appropriate hash tags when applicable. After all posts are ready to go, I scour my favorite online sources for relevant content I can use for next week’s social media lineup. I prepare RMS’s social media content a week before we post it on our outlets. This includes creating images, organizing posts, creating content, incorporating appropriate hash tags, researching trends, and prepping the content to be posted. The social media strategy is very dynamic at RMS, so there are many “rules” (as I call them) that need to be followed on each platform. These rules allows us to ensure that our content uses effective branding, reaches the optimal number of people, and engages our target audiences.

Once I finish up my daily social media tasks, I focus on the other half of my job title, Panel Coordinator. To explain it simply, I manage the RMS ViewPoint Research Panel and research panels that we build for clients. Panel management includes creating growth strategies, implementing registration processes, database management, implementing quality control measures, capturing desired information based on the clients’ needs, and updating clients on panel progress. Creating growth strategies is where I can apply the most creativity, and have the most fun. Growth strategies can range from attending or hosting events, to creating high-powered campaigns.

In addition to this work, I also help my fellow Analytics team members with any projects that may need an extra hand. This can range from drafting a survey, assisting with report writing, creating a report template, conducting an in-depth interview, coding survey responses, proofing, or anything else that falls in my lap! I’m always ready to help out where needed, especially when I can learn new skills, and I’m sure my coworkers will attest to that. I will typically fit this type of work into my schedule as needed, which mixes my days up a bit (and I LOVE that). Throughout the day you may catch me checking the RMS social media accounts and my inbox for activity. My week also has a sprinkle of meetings and/or events to attend. I like to continually expand my skill set and think creatively, so you might also catch me at a local park or coffee shop writing, volunteering with a local organization, or enjoying the outdoors! If you live in CNY you know all too well that you have to take advantage of warm weather while it lasts, because you cannot always go kayaking, running, or hiking! Nonetheless, I hope you have learned a little more about me and my role as the Social Media and Panel Coordinator at RMS. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below and I will get back to you!

To stay up to date with all of the latest RMS news and information:
 
Follow us on Twitter @RMS_Research!
 
Like us on Facebook!
 
Follow us on LinkedIn!
 
Are you a member of the RMS ViewPoint Research Panel yet? To stay up to date with the latest research opportunities:
 
Follow us on Twitter at @RMS_ViewPoint
 
If you’re interested in learning more about RMS, please visit our website. If you’d like more information about the services we offer, please contact our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy, Sandy Baker, at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 315-635-9802.

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5 Tips for Organizing Social Media for Small Businesses

Managing content on social media platforms can become time consuming. Social media is something we at RMS deal with on a daily basis for our internal purposes, recruiting purposes, ViewPoint Research Panel, and clients. Through our work, we have come up with strategies to tackle managing social media accounts that could be applied to your business.

Below are 5 tips for organizing social media efforts for small businesses.

1. Have one, or only a few “cooks in the kitchen”

Too many people working on the same social media account leads to confusion. This often creates duplicate content and poorly timed posts. If used strategically, social media can enhance the branding and reputation of your business. If your organization is able to use social media effectively, you will notice an increase in awareness throughout your community, target audiences, and industry.

2. Create your kitchen

Once you have made the decision to limit the number of people who can post on your social media platforms, you now need to create a place for employees to communicate quickly and easily with the account administrator(s). Creating an email account specifically for passing along suggested social media content is an easy way to create a dumping ground for content. This enables employees to communicate important events and content that the administrator(s) may not be aware of. In other words, all content goes to one centralized place for the cooks, like a kitchen.

3. Create a recipe

One of the most important reasons for organizing social media accounts is to understand what is being posted and when. Redundancy is one of the easiest ways to lose followers and likes. This makes it important for the administrator(s) to post the right content on the right platform at the right time. Have a plan and stick to it. Some social media administrators turn to social media management software like Hootsuite and Buffer for assistance. These applications help administrators view multiple social media platforms at once, post on multiple accounts at once, and schedule future posts.

4. Understand what utensils and appliances to use

In order to understand what to post on a particular platform and when, the administrator(s) first need to understand the differences and objectives of each social media platform. Each platform has specific audiences, and all of which need well thought out strategic posts. In order to understand what to post where, you will need to evaluate current and potential followers, and what types of content these audiences are looking for. Also, make sure you are using the correct social media outlet to reach this audience, and that you are creating posts appropriate for that outlet. So in summary, you could cook a steak in a microwave, but is that really the best platform to obtain the best result?

5. Quality not quantity

Focusing on what you are posting instead of how often you are posting is key. Another way to lose followers and likes is to post dull content, or content that is non-applicable for the audience on a specific platform. For tips and examples on how to revamp social media posts click here. Ultimately, you need to aim to cook relatable content. Quality content in small bits is much better than mediocre content that is posted all the time.

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more social media tips or would like to conduct a social media assessment  contact Sandy Baker, Director of Business Development,  at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.

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5 Tips to Get Started with Social Media for Business

Social media is a great method of outreach if you know how to use it.  Many businesses utilize social media because it is a cheap and easy way to connect with consumers. However, some companies do not know what they should and should not include on their social media pages. As a result they decide to never start on social media, or start but stay away as much as possible. Put these five tips in your social media tool kit before you aim to get thousands of likes and followers.

1. Set Goals

This sounds simple, but it helps you understand what expectations should be. A lot of your success with social media would depend on the audience you are trying to target. For instance, you should know what the most popular social media website for this specific audience is, how many times would they visit this website, and what type of messages work best for that audience.  A social media assessment can help you with that.

You could arbitrarily set a goal. For example to increase “Likes” on Facebook by 20 percent by the end of this month.  Or, you could analyze competing business’ social media efforts and set a more feasible goal. Once you have set your goal, check out Facebook Analytics. This will help you understand what times are best to send out messages to the users, what messages received the most coverage, as well as other useful information.

2. Increase Credibility

Credibility is particularly important in social media. In order to present your business in a viable manner make sure everything on your page is business related. All posts should connect with your professional efforts. However, this does not mean you cannot have fun and be creative. Some ways RMS has done this is by:

Posting fun photos of employees:

Participating in trends:

Posting about events happening in the area:

 Efforts like these help add a “face” to your business and often generate the most hits.

3. Pull Responses

The prep work for this is easy to complete, but actually getting responses is difficult to achieve.  All you have to do to get started is to give users an opportunity to start a conversation. For example you could do something like this:

4. Follow Up

Once you open the lines of communication respond quickly with accurate information. Furthermore, consider sending direct messages to users who like your page, like posts, or follow you by sending them a simple thank you note. This is also a great opportunity to include a quick plug about your business, and to provide them with resources to seek out additional information. Even if issues come up on social media, it provides you an opportunity to address it immediately. Even more importantly, others can see you were reasonable, responsible, and professional. Below is a review on Facebook from a ViewPoint Panel member, which RMS quickly responded to.

 5. Reward Customers

You may be wondering why many people have not liked your page or posts thus far. One way to increase your numbers is to create an incentive to come to your page. Many businesses offer exclusive coupon codes that give customers a reason to visit its page. For example, you could offer a code for 10% off an order.

Another way to reward customers is to create your own contest or challenge by having customers complete a task in order to get a reward. This could be as simple as asking customers to post a photo of themselves using your product or service to your page. Then, the customer with the best photo wins $50. This is an easy way to get awesome promotional efforts out to current and potential consumers. Below is an example from a post on RMS’s Refer-A-Friend Challenge.

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more social media tips contact our Director of Business Development Sandy Baker at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.

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